The Largest U.S. Charities For 2015

Despite more people out of the workforce or working for themselves in the "gig" economy, United Way, which depends mainly on employer paycheck donations, remains No. 1 on the annual Forbes list of the 50 largest U.S. charities.

United Way took in $3.87 billion in the fiscal year ending December 31, 2014, the same as the year before. Still, no other charity was anywhere near the Alexandria, Va.-based network of more than 1,000 legally independent units across the country.

Salvation Army again is No. 2. In its last reported fiscal year, ending September 30, 2014, it received donations of $2.12 billion, a year-to-year increase of 2%. Actually a church with its own doctrine, the organization is far better known for its social service efforts and its Christmas-season kettles to collect donations.

Feeding America, the Chicago-based umbrella organization for hundreds of local food banks around the country, repeats as No. 3. It recorded gifts–mainly donated food–of $2.02 billion in its fiscal year ending June 30, 2014, up 8% from a year earlier.

Task Force for Global Health, a Decatur, Ga., nonprofit that routes donated medicines abroad, stayed at No. 4, with recorded gifts of $1.61 billion, a 2% boost, for the year ending August 31, 2015.

Cracking the top five for the first time is St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, the stand-alone Memphis health care facility. It collected $1.08 billion in the year ending June 30, 2015.

The amount of private donations, as opposed to government grants or revenue from the sale of goods or undefinedservices, is the main criteria for compiling the Forbes list. Collectively, the 50 charities on this 17th edition received $33 billion in donations, up $2 billion from the previous year. The total collected by the 50 is about one-tenth of the estimated $350 billion received by the country’s 1 million-plus nonprofits. The cutoff for this year’s list–No. 50–is $244 million. That rank belongs to Brother's Brother Foundation.

Some nonprofits on this list have substantial revenue other than gifts. No. 17 on the list, Lutheran Services in America, the umbrella organization for several hundred Lutheran social service agencies, received $723 million in gifts but collected nearly $20 billion in fees.

Of the 50 largest charities, eight reported paying some employee more than $1 million. The highest compensated chief executives were Craig B. Thompson, head of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, $2,944,926, followed by John H. Noseworthy of Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., $1,900,297, and Edward J. Benz Jr., Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, $1,495,477. These figures can include benefits, deferred compensation and one-time bonuses and might be for a different fiscal year than that on the list.

The Forbes list also calculates financial efficiencies for each charity and changes in those ratios from the prior period. For that detail, plus more information on each charity, including top pay, click here. For a description of the methodology, an explanation of the financial efficiency ratios and how donors can use the data to help evaluate almost any charity, click here.

A journalist for nearly five decades, I've written for Forbes since 1987. I've covered personal finance, taxes, retirement, nonprofits, scandals and other topics that interest me. I also am the author of a novel, OFFSIDE: A Mystery. Email me at: wbarrett.forbes@gmail.com .